OK, so the latest on my ongoing tooth saga is that they were finally able to make an impression of my tooth on Monday and I am scheduled to go back for my permanent crown 3 weeks from today. Yippee! It's been so nice to be able to eat on both sides of my mouth (I used to only be able to talk out both sides of my mouth...kidding!). While I was in the dentist chair getting worked on, the program Daytime came on the TV there in the room, and I felt a pang of nostalgia hit me hard. Our family had been interviewed in our RV on that show back in August just a couple weeks before we took off. I am still so very grateful for our 3 1/2 months we had and I'm still chomping at the bit for more! Tim and I had the opportunity to share our marriage testimony at our church's marriage 911 class last night, and it made me long again for helping marriages and families. We had prayed together on the way to the class that what we shared would be the Lord's words offering hope, and we had so many people come up to us afterward to say they really had needed to hear what we had to say. I had picked Tim up from work before we headed to the church last night, and he had such great news waiting for me - he had the privilege of leading someone to Christ yesterday! There is nothing like doing what you know you've been called to do.

One thing I've been kicking around for the past few months is to share here on our blog some of the things we would be sharing with couples and families we hope to be ministering to. So, I'm going to do that now and see what kind of feedback it generates to see if this would be effective. One of the things we shared last night (that we hadn't even planned on sharing but the people asked us to give an example of some tools we use) was a tool we have found to be critical in helping us and others communicate more successfully. It is called the Speaker-Listener technique. The basic premise is that the speaker holds an object in their hand (like a pen or a piece of paper), and while they have that object they have 'the floor' so to speak. They speak what is on their mind in short phrases (key) and the listener paraphrases back what they hear. When the speaker is done talking, they pass the object to the other person to symbolize the other person now has 'the floor'. It may sound silly or awkward, but it is actually scientifically proven (I'm not kidding!) that it improves marital satisfaction when it is used. Obviously it is not to be used for every conversation, but for those conversations that tend to escalate and never get resolved, it is a GREAT tool to use to be able to discuss a problem productively. I would recommend googling it as there are some good videos and more information on it out there. There are more parameters that I would LOVE to share (like how to use feeling statements and not attacking statements) that are also very important to keep in mind when using this tool, but this post is already way longer than I want it to be. So let me know if you have any questions, or put a comment out here if you try it and let me know how it goes!

Tim & Jodie

Tim and Jodie have been married since Nov. 5, 1988. Tim is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and retired city of Tampa Firefighter. Jodie is a happily laid off IBM/AT&T 21 yr veteran employee turned stay-at-home home-schooling mom (say that fast three times!). She works very part-time for a local Christian author and speaker. They have four wonderful children: triplets Nathan, Nicole, and Noah born 11/16/97 and Nicholas born 5/16/99.